The Supreme Court of Virginia on May 8th, struck down a voter-approved constitutional amendment that would have authorized Democrats to redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade, voiding the results of the April 21 special election in which Virginia voters had narrowly approved the measure. In a 4-3 decision in McDougle v. Virginia, the court ruled that the General Assembly violated procedural requirements under Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution by advancing the amendment to the ballot, declaring that the constitutional violation “incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy.” The core procedural flaw, as the court saw it, was that lawmakers gave the amendment its first approval in October 2025 after early voting had already begun in that fall’s House of Delegates elections, meaning the required “intervening general election” between the legislature’s first and second approvals had not properly occurred. The ruling keeps Virginia’s current congressional map in place for the 2026 midterms and through the rest of the decade.
The legal challenge was filed in October by Republican state Sens. Ryan McDougle and Bill Stanley, Delegate Terry Kilgore, and a member of Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission, arguing that Democrats had bypassed constitutionally mandated procedural safeguards. A Tazewell County circuit court judge sided with the challengers in January, but the Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the April 21 referendum to proceed while it considered the underlying legal questions, setting up today’s definitive ruling.
The ruling effectively removes Virginia from the column of states that could meaningfully shift the congressional balance through redistricting this cycle, leaving Democrats with fewer options to offset Republican gains elsewhere as the midterms approach, and coming on the same day, Tennessee’s governor signed a new Republican-drawn congressional map into law.
Virginia Democrats have filed an emergency motion asking the state Supreme Court to stay its own ruling, signaling plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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